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The Case Against Reading Everything

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Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#11

Post by jonnathanson »

jasode wrote: post #8
jonnathanson wrote: post #2

This article is horseshit. I'm a professional writer, and I'll trust Oates and King over whoever this guy is. "Read widely" isn't some religious dictum. It's more of a religious calling. (Of sorts.) If you love to read, and you love to write, you naturally read all fucking day. Your thirst is unquenchable. Your tastes are varied. So you drink from many different fountains. You also realize there is no trade off betwe…

>You also realize there is no trade off between depth and breadth. It's a false dichotomy. It's a tradeoff because of the finite time for reading. One can reread Shakespeare's 4 tragedies (Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth) again for the 10th time (about 8 hours of reading) -- or -- read E.L. James "50 Shades of Grey" for the 1st time (also about ~8 hours of reading). Some writers may suggest that you read E.L. Jam…

No, I'm not literally suggesting people have infinite time on their hands. Rather, what I'm suggesting is that time compresses when you're reading for pleasure. When you reach a certain "level," shall we say, you read so naturally and so widely and so frequently that it is truly astonishing how much you can read in a day.

Then again, I'll continue to caveat all of this by saying that my subjective experience seems increasingly abnormal every time I read someone's advice on how to read (or write). The idea of deliberately practicing a style or a voice is weird to me. I've always written by ear, and I've never thought about it. I've thought about structure, and character, and perspective, and logic, and all of the other elements that go into writing well. But when it comes to voice and style, well, shit, man. You pick it up as you go along, and you learn to trust it. It strengthens, not weakens, with exposure to breadth.

One last time: I'm going to go out on a limb and say that my experience is probably weird.

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#12

Post by thisisit »

Isn't the solution to read from a selected list rather than take everything you can get your hands on? That's why people tend to look at year-end, best of lists, especially the ones generated from a wide range of audience.

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#13

Post by jonnathanson »

pedrosorio wrote: post #9
jonnathanson wrote: post #2

This article is horseshit. I'm a professional writer, and I'll trust Oates and King over whoever this guy is. "Read widely" isn't some religious dictum. It's more of a religious calling. (Of sorts.) If you love to read, and you love to write, you naturally read all fucking day. Your thirst is unquenchable. Your tastes are varied. So you drink from many different fountains. You also realize there is no trade off betwe…

> You also realize there is no trade off between depth and breadth. It's a false dichotomy. Given that we're in a forum where computer science and engineering topics are often discussed, I find it odd that anyone would suggest this. You have a limited resource (time). Whenever you have a limited resource, there are tradeoffs in how you spend it. Unless exhaustive search is feasible, there is indeed a tradeoff between…

Depth and breadth, in this case, are not opposite directions on a straight line. They are vectors that only appear oppositional when viewed under specific time constraints. The more prolific a reader you are, the more efficiently you read, and thus your higher throughput dramatically compresses time.

If we're to speak about very specific increments of time and units of reading material -- say, you get to read N books over 1 week -- then sure, the zero-sum argument holds. But a lifetime is so much time, offering so much opportunity to the experienced reader, that time is almost effectively lifted as a constraint.

The only zero-sum quantities in this case are time and number of books. Depth and breadth of subject matter are better described as characterizing subcategories of #_books.

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#14

Post by stult »

pedrosorio wrote: post #9
jonnathanson wrote: post #2

This article is horseshit. I'm a professional writer, and I'll trust Oates and King over whoever this guy is. "Read widely" isn't some religious dictum. It's more of a religious calling. (Of sorts.) If you love to read, and you love to write, you naturally read all fucking day. Your thirst is unquenchable. Your tastes are varied. So you drink from many different fountains. You also realize there is no trade off betwe…

> You also realize there is no trade off between depth and breadth. It's a false dichotomy. Given that we're in a forum where computer science and engineering topics are often discussed, I find it odd that anyone would suggest this. You have a limited resource (time). Whenever you have a limited resource, there are tradeoffs in how you spend it. Unless exhaustive search is feasible, there is indeed a tradeoff between…

I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusion but your analysis is an oversimplification. It's possible reading broadly across domains results in deeper individual domain expertise by enabling cross-fertilization between the domains. So the relationship between depth and breadth isn't necessarily inverse or linear.

Take the recent solution to the Kadison-Singer problem. A group of relative outsiders with comparatively little mathematics expertise solved a long standing problem using techniques from their own field, computer science. The depth they achieved in math exceeded that of people who focused solely on the math. And similarly they achieved more in their own field by tackling problems from other fields.

Obviously there's a very tight conceptual relationship between those two fields even if that isn't always the case institutionally. But I think you can easily find examples where knowledge from dramatically different domains contributed to some paradigm shift, breakthrough, or other significant achievement.

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#15

Post by alexpetralia »

jasode wrote: post #8
jonnathanson wrote: post #2

This article is horseshit. I'm a professional writer, and I'll trust Oates and King over whoever this guy is. "Read widely" isn't some religious dictum. It's more of a religious calling. (Of sorts.) If you love to read, and you love to write, you naturally read all fucking day. Your thirst is unquenchable. Your tastes are varied. So you drink from many different fountains. You also realize there is no trade off betwe…

>You also realize there is no trade off between depth and breadth. It's a false dichotomy. It's a tradeoff because of the finite time for reading. One can reread Shakespeare's 4 tragedies (Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth) again for the 10th time (about 8 hours of reading) -- or -- read E.L. James "50 Shades of Grey" for the 1st time (also about ~8 hours of reading). Some writers may suggest that you read E.L. Jam…

For any individual, there must be a breadth vs. depth tradeoff.

However, across individuals, there certainly need not be (and I think that is the intuition). Saying someone "reads for breadth" or "reads for depth" doesn't seem as justified if they read 10x as much as anyone else - relative to others, they "read for both."

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#16

Post by jonnathanson »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #10
jasode wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You also realize there is no trade off between depth and breadth. It's a false dichotomy. It's a tradeoff because of the finite time for reading. One can reread Shakespeare's 4 tragedies (Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth) again for the 10th time (about 8 hours of reading) -- or -- read E.L. James "50 Shades of Grey" for the 1st time (also about ~8 hours of reading). Some writers may suggest that you read E.L. Jam…

>"read some BDSM material" Emphasis on quotes. Most of that novel is an abusive relationship, from what I hear.

See, what's interesting to me is that the grandparent comment describes "50 Shades" as ~8 hours of reading. The zero-sum argument assumes that reading time is some fixed value for all people. I don't remember how long it took me to read "50 Shades," but it was significantly less than 8 hours, and couldn't have been more than an hour. (I'm not saying that to brag. It takes me a lot longer to do many other things than many other people. My only point is that the author of the article completely ignores throughput variability in his calculus.)

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#17

Post by WhoIsSatoshi »

I sympathize, I love reading but I intently skip some books until they have surfaced - I view reading as a monte-carlo localization: read what appear to have the most probable high reward as determined by the prior exploration, but occasionally throw a curveball in there in case you might be missing something that is just that far out. Interestingly, can be applied to many other aspects of one's life.

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#18

Post by jasode »

jonnathanson wrote: post #16
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"read some BDSM material" Emphasis on quotes. Most of that novel is an abusive relationship, from what I hear.

See, what's interesting to me is that the grandparent comment describes "50 Shades" as ~8 hours of reading. The zero-sum argument assumes that reading time is some fixed value for all people. I don't remember how long it took me to read "50 Shades," but it was significantly less than 8 hours, and couldn't have been more than an hour. (I'm not saying that to brag. It takes me a lot longer to do many other things than…

> I don't remember how long it took me to read "50 Shades," [...], and couldn't have been more than an hour.

Based on ~155,000 words[1], that would be reading ~2500 words-per-minute.

Most everyone else reads around ~200wpm to ~400wpm. Reading at 300wpm is considered "fast" for a college-educated adult.

[1] https://novelwordcount.com/2015/04/11/fifty-shades-of-grey-w...

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#19

Post by ThomPete »

jonnathanson wrote: post #2

This article is horseshit. I'm a professional writer, and I'll trust Oates and King over whoever this guy is. "Read widely" isn't some religious dictum. It's more of a religious calling. (Of sorts.) If you love to read, and you love to write, you naturally read all fucking day. Your thirst is unquenchable. Your tastes are varied. So you drink from many different fountains. You also realize there is no trade off betwe…

Every time my wife and I go skiing we end up with the same discussion.

My wife wants to try as many pistes as possible I like exploring the same in more depth explore some of the details.

She gets to explore many different pistes I get to explore the details of the same.

The tradeoff is really about perspective but it's not really a tradeoff but just consequence of choices (which is a kind of tradeoff).

Re: The Case Against Reading Everything

#20

Post by csallen »

jonnathanson wrote: post #11
jasode wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You also realize there is no trade off between depth and breadth. It's a false dichotomy. It's a tradeoff because of the finite time for reading. One can reread Shakespeare's 4 tragedies (Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth) again for the 10th time (about 8 hours of reading) -- or -- read E.L. James "50 Shades of Grey" for the 1st time (also about ~8 hours of reading). Some writers may suggest that you read E.L. Jam…

No, I'm not literally suggesting people have infinite time on their hands. Rather, what I'm suggesting is that time compresses when you're reading for pleasure. When you reach a certain "level," shall we say, you read so naturally and so widely and so frequently that it is truly astonishing how much you can read in a day. Then again, I'll continue to caveat all of this by saying that my subjective experience seems in…

What kinds of material do you read? Any recommendations? I'm particularly interested in engrossing fiction, and also non-fiction work with "sticky" ideas that have changed the way you see the world.
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